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Posted by David Sherman on Sunday, December 28, 2008 at 01:15:43 :
In Reply to: o/t epay really starting to suck posted by jim in n.y. on Saturday, December 27, 2008 at 23:22:25 :
I hate ebay too, and also had a listing pulled recently, apparently because it had the bad word "AK47" in the description.
That said, I don't like it when sellers use the "for sale locally" language. If I'm going to go to the trouble of following a listing until the end and bidding sincerely on it to try to get it, I don't want the seller weaseling out for any reason. If you want to list it on ebay AND list it locally, the honest way to do it is to put a fixed "buy it now" price on it on ebay, which doesn't have to be the same as your local price, and then end the listing if you sell it locally. Another option is to put a high "buy it now" price on ebay, and include the "make offer" feature. Again, it needn't be the same as your local price. What's good about both of these alternatives is you're not jacking the buyers around by making them think that the high bidder is definitely going to get the item (which is exactly how a real auction works), having them watch it, maybe have a bid ready to go via one of the sniper services, and then find out you pulled it.
In business, it's always good to try to look at things from the other guy's point of view and see if what you're doing would seem fair if you were him.
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